GPUS Steering Committee Minutes – 8 July 2018
SUMMARY FOR DISTRIBUTION TO STATES AND LOCAL CHAPTERS:
1. New Business: Welcome Violet Zitola; Platform Committee submission of Platform Amendment proposals; Legitimacy of recent Accreditation Committee (AC) election
2. Standing Business: Treasurer’s Report (Treasurer’s Reports to the GNC available at https://gpus.org/treasurers-reports/), Fundraising Report, Fundraising Consultant update; Liaison reports
3. Voting Queue – https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/login
In the queue: Platform Amendments – Protecting the Great Lakes, Fair Taxation, Insurance Report; b) Correcting the Records for Proposals 898, 899, 904, 905, and 906; Approve Darryl! Moch for Finance Committee; Platform Amendments – Livable Income, Monetary and Banking Reform, Economic Justice and Sustainability/National Debt, Amend the GPUS Platform Preamble; 2018 Election of GPUS Treasurer; 2018 Election of GPUS Steering Committee Co-Chairs
Received for the queue: None
Online SC Proposals approved since last call and sent to the NC: Approve funding up to $1530 for International Committee to attend The Sao Paulo Forum
4. Old Business: ANM update, Plenary planning by SC, Strategic Planning meeting; Tech – miscellaneous and voting page maintenance/ETC recommendations; Freshdesk update; Election database Phase II and III update, Forum Manager reports follow up discussion
5. Executive Session: None
The full minutes are available at http://gpus.org/committees/steering/minutes/july-6-2018/
The call recording is available at 712-451-0309, 926334#, reference 26 and
https://gpus.org/steering-committee-recordings/
Jody Grage, Secretary
GPUS Steering Committee Minutes – 8 July 2018
AGENDA:
I. CALL SETUP & BACKGROUND – 15 min
a) Facilitator: Sid Smith
b) Roll call – Chris Blankenhorn, Andrea Merida, Gloria Mattera, Violet Zitola, Jody Grage, Hillary Kane
Absent: – Darlene Elias, Darryl! Moch, Tony Ndege
Observers: David Gerry MA, Bruce Hinkforth WI; Tamar Yagar VA
c) Agenda revision suggestions: approved – Forum Manager report – Chris – Old Business (g)
II. NEW BUSINESS – 15 min.
a) Welcome incoming SC co-chair Violet Rose Zitola – Violet will be in Salt Lake City
b) Platform Committee submission of Platform Amendment proposals – Andrea
Discussion to clarify if PlatCom’s current Mission Statement (Proposal 801) includes the ability to present new planks for Platform amendments: Bruce Hinkforth (PlatCom Co-Chair) read old wording in committee rules and Proposal #196 from 2005 that could be causing confusion and cited previous similar amends to the platform from PlatCom as precedent; discussion of need for transparency and consultation with effected states/caucuses; discussion of platform as national document which may not be equally supported by every state/caucus/committee; discussion of what is appropriate/necessary platform content; Andrea will be submitting a proposal
c) Legitimacy of recent Accreditation Committee (AC) election – Darryl!
Question about statements on previous call that need review; Gloria as temporary AC liaison – election done according to
AC bylaws with some interpretation because they aren’t very specific and include older system of fractional voting with one
vote per state rather than voting by individual committee members, AC subcommittee working on revising and updating bylaws; concern re: not using IRV as GPUS bylaws require and co-chair established cut-off date for joining committee to be able to vote and that a few people were unable to vote; Darryl! will work with Gloria in hopes of getting AC bylaws rewritten in the next two weeks and to get resolution of CO issue in AC
III. STANDING BUSINESS – 30 min.
a) Treasurer’s report – Hillary Kane, 10 min.
Treasurer’s Reports to the GNC available at https://gpus.org/treasurers-reports/
$116,366.72 in all accounts +$2,000 in PayPal, some ANM income will go paid back out in next month; income reports
delayed because of technical glitch and ANM activity; last payroll to staff included final severance payments and health care, saving from staff reduction will now be available
Fundraising Consultant update – Hillary, Gloria – 1st payment of $5000 made for fundraising retainer, documents requested for initial audit being assembled; data protection in contract to cover donor info and our ownership of data
b) Fundraising report – Gloria – 10 min.
4th July eblast and resent on 7 July – amended previous very successful, $567 included with $67 from 6 sustainers; Caring Cents lst email out Tuesday with follow up on Saturday; direct mail $12409.55 plus $500 not entered yet; direct mail after ANM – need writer who will be at ANM – perhaps Dave Schwab or Alison Baldree, consultant will review to suggest improvements and improve our approach, consensus on stipend up to $200 from existing staff line item
c) Liaison reports – 20 min. (ANM update later in agenda)
Media – Gloria – small subgroup call last week with Jillian Thomas, will take more active role with social media especially Twitter; Ann as co-chair has put together what needs to be done for ANM press conferences
CCC – Hillary – Green Wave – get people out and visible supporting candidates, take photos of campaign activities and post to #greenwave2018, especially 1st Saturday every month; SC level participation to raise money for CCC candidate support – Facebook Telethon with 6-8 hours of content – 19 August? – candidates, issues, etc., prerecorded or live, community based
IV. VOTING QUEUE – Jody – 5 min.
(https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/login)
In the queue:
a) Platform Amendments – Protecting the Great Lakes, Fair Taxation, Insurance Report
b) Correcting the Records for Proposals 898, 899, 904, 905, and 906
c) Approve Darryl! Moch for Finance Committee
d) Platform Amendments – Livable Income, Monetary and Banking Reform, Economic Justice and Sustainability/National Debt, Amend the GPUS Platform Preamble; 2018 Election of GPUS Treasurer; 2018 Election of GPUS Steering Committee Co-Chairs
Received for the queue (Floor Managers needed): None
Online SC Proposals approved since last call and sent to the NC: Approve funding up to $1530 for International Committee to attend The Sao Paulo Forum
V. OLD BUSINESS – 50 min.
a) ANM updates – 10 min
no rooms or meal tickets after tomorrow, 150 registered now – app. probably 165
Televised forum for SC candidates – Andrea will work on, for discussion online
b) Plenary planning by SC and need for facilitators – Gloria – 10 min
anti oppression training review – 90 – 120 minutes
outreach to celebrities still in process – DeCamp won’t be there but will do something in CA, Dore may still work out,
Standing Rock representative will be part of the opening TH night and introduce film, will also take part in the plenary and
panel with Cheri, Chase, union rep, immigrant rep; Ajamu uncertain; PCSC handling presidential debriefing – 90 min on Sunday;
facilitators still to be arranged
c) Strategic Planning meeting – Darryl!, Gloria – 10 min
Not in SLC – Andrea, Chris, Darryl!, Darlene, Tony?; In SLC – Jody, Violet, Gloria, Hillary
plan to Include SC candidates and be able to call/Skype in; online discussion about when and where
d) Tech – miscellaneous and voting page maintenance/ETC recommendations – items detailed and prioritized – Chris – 10 min
nothing being funded right now, Chris will talk to Hugh about manually ending SC elections at 5 pm SLC time
Violet will continue the discussions with Hugh, suggest Violet/Hugh/Jody call about the secretarial items prioritization
e) Freshdesk update – 5 min – Chris was away for a couple weeks, encourages SC participants, vols being forwarded to state/caucus/committees, Mike/Chris/Starlene can do further trainings, assignments may be necessary, needs cleaning up now
f) Updates on pending agenda items – 5 min
1) Election database Phase II and III update – Hillary – Phase II finished product received from Kendra Markel, test drive 19 June that worked, final bill paid, quick overview to ANM attendees was planned; Phase III not in budget; ready for use for
Apportionment Tabulation – Hillary will ask Erin Fox and Holly
g) FM reports – request for more detailed report has been pending, privacy issues, no public acknowledgment of behavior consequences, etc.; quarterly report due – need updated numbers; process questions – how decisions made and on what basis; suggested joint SC/FM call within two weeks to include changes FMs would like, regular SC call format with recording and agenda and minutes to report back to SC members who are not on the call, SC can send questions for the call, need to know what doing and how decisions are made, Darryl! will arrange – consensus
Recording of call ended at 10:10 pm Eastern
The next Steering Committee call with be on the fifth Sunday 29 July because the fourth Sunday is during the 2018 ANM.
VI. EXECUTIVE SESSION – none
TOTAL TIME: 2 hour 10 minutes
Jody Grage, Secretary